


Blessings and Curses

by polynya



Category: Bleach
Genre: Academy Era, F/M, Fortune Telling, New Years, Pre-Relationship, everyone has crushes on everyone else because teens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:55:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28482750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/polynya/pseuds/polynya
Summary: Rukia would have rather sulked in her dorm than spend her New Year's break at Renji's friend Momo's house, but there are some fates you just can't escape. At least the food is good.
Relationships: Abarai Renji & Hinamori Momo & Kira Izuru, Abarai Renji & Kuchiki Rukia, Abarai Renji/Kuchiki Rukia, Hinamori Momo & Hitsugaya Toushirou
Comments: 12
Kudos: 33





	Blessings and Curses

**Author's Note:**

> I am enchanted by the fact that both the New Year's episodes of the anime are cute little Renruki stories, and I wanted to write my own. Much like those eps, this isn't explicitly shippy, but it's shippy in my heart, so you can read it in whichever way brings joy to your heart.
> 
> I have never had the pleasure of celebrating a New Year in Japan. I did a bunch of research (i.e. googling) but I apologize for any cultural inaccuracies. I am rather fascinated with the idea of shrines in Soul Society anyway, since it's explicitly stated that they don't have gods. I have always felt like Soul Society is an afterimage of the Living World where souls go through the motions of human actions, stripped of their significance. 
> 
> This author's note is getting too heavy. Please enjoy this story about teen Rukia being a grumpus and everyone dragging Toushirou.

The tops hummed as they jostled for position within the canvas bowl. Renji leaned forward, narrowing his eyes, as if he could make up for his clearly inferior throw with sheer willpower. Rukia glanced over at Momo’s weird little brother, whose own bright eyes glinted like steel. Renji was one of the most stubborn people she had ever met, but she wasn’t entirely sure he could out-will this kid.

Momo’s pigtailed head suddenly appeared around the side of the house. “Izuru’s here! Izuru’s here!”

“Cool!” Renji yelled, jumping to his feet and chasing Momo around to the street-side of the house, tops forgotten.

“That’s a forfeit,” Toushirou declared, even though his top had already knocked Renji’s aside. He glanced up at Rukia. “You want to go again, or would you rather hang out with your friends?”

“I’ll go again,” Rukia decided. Renji was her friend. Hinamori and Kira were Renji’s friends. “Hey, can you show me how you did it again? You’re really good.”

Toushirou didn’t look flattered, exactly, but he regarded her with something like respect. Like he approved of her good judgement in asking for help. It was a weird look on such a little kid’s face, but Rukia didn’t have any space to judge people on scrawny appearances. She didn’t expect that she was actually going to beat him at this game, but she figured it wouldn’t take too much practice to be able to beat _Renji_.

She was only half able to pay attention as he demonstrated wrapping the string around the top, however, over the voices that emanated from the other side of the house.

Momo’s grandmother greeted Izuru and exclaimed over something he’d brought, probably food. Probably fancy rich people food, coated in gold. Not that Rukia was complaining. Rukia was a big fan of eating and she was an ever bigger fan of eating food that _other people had paid for_.

Momo chirped, _once again_ , how nice it was for Izuru to come visit them in Junrinan, how glad she was that they could all be together for the new year.

Then, Renji’s grumbly baritone. “Nice o’ you to show up after all the cooking and cleaning’s done with,” followed by a muffled _thunk_ that was surely Kira getting his traditional New Year’s punch in the shoulder.

Rukia threw her top, whipping her wrist like Toushirou had shown her. It practically ripped a rent in the bowl.

“Nice!” Toushirou appraised, his eyebrows furrowed. “You’re a quick learner, Inuzuri.”

“Just Rukia, please,” Rukia corrected.

“It’s what you prefer?” Toushirou sounded unsure. “I don’t care for forced familiarity.”

“I prefer it,” Rukia confirmed. “They make you use a surname at school, but no one in their right mind wants to be called after that shithole.”

“I see,” he agreed. “Rukia, it is.”

“The grump squad’s out back!” Momo’s voice rang out. “Rukia, look who’s here!”

“Hi, Kira,” Rukia said, retrieving her top and starting to wrap it again without looking up.

“Shirou, this is Kira Izuru, the one I told you all about!”

“Hello,” Toushirou nodded. “Do you know anything about tops?”

“Ha ha,” Kira laughed his weird, polite laugh. “I’ve heard enough from Momo to know not to challenge you.”

“We’re gonna play uta-garuta,” Renji declared. “You two wanna play?”

“Izuru brought the most beautiful karuta set,” Momo nodded eagerly.

“Don’t you need to know poetry to play?” Rukia asked skeptically, rolling her face up to look at Renji. “You don’t know shit about poetry.”

“I know more about poetry than you do,” he sneered back.

“Twice nothing is still nothing,” she pointed out.

“Be on a team with me, Rukia!” Momo pleaded. “We’ll kick those boys’ butts!”

“You don’t know anything about poetry, either,” Toushirou accused her.

Momo heaved an enormous sigh. “Well, Kira _also_ brought a big beautiful box of sweets and Granny said we could have some while we play, since we aren’t going to eat dinner until after we get back from the shrine.” She paused a carefully calculated amount of time. “If you two don’t come play, Renji and I are going to eat all the kuromame.”

Rukia snorted. That was a lie. Half a lie, anyway. Momo ate like a chipmunk. She’d probably get full if she managed to eat an entire bean. Renji, on the other hand, was a serious threat, especially where sweetened beans were concerned.

“Fine,” Toushirou sneered. “I’ll prop up your dumb team, but the beans are _mine_.”

* * *

“Which one do you like best?” Momo asked, proudly displaying her modest collection of kanzashi.

Rukia hunched her shoulders. She was already wearing Momo’s prettiest kimono, and she hated it. “I don’t think I need one,” she excused.

Momo laughed her bright, pretty laugh. “Don’t you want to look pretty? For Renji?” There was a tiny bit of sharpness in the comment, a needleprick of competitiveness.

Rukia’s cheeks felt hot. “He knows what I look like,” she snapped back. Good luck to Momo trying to catch Renji’s eye in any case. The only reason he’d _ever_ look closely at a pretty kimono was to figure out how much he could fence it for.

“He knows what you look like in a _uniform_ ,” Momo collected. “But boys always make a funny face when they see a girl dressed up and they aren’t used to it.” Her fingers hovered over a silk peach blossom. “This is the one I usually wear with that kimono.” Momo worried her bottom lip with her teeth. “But maybe this one is better for the New Year.” She pointed to one that looked like a pair of tiny fans.

The reason Rukia was wearing Momo’s prettiest kimono wasn’t because Momo was particularly generous. Momo was also wearing a very pretty kimono, patterned in overlapping scales of pine, bamboo and plum blossom against a deep red. It was quite obviously a kimono _just for New Year’s_ , which seemed to Rukia, frankly ridiculous.

But maybe Rukia was the ridiculous one. She knew there were rules about which patterns and colors you were supposed to wear for different occasions, but she didn’t actually know what the rules _were_. She strongly suspected that the one she was wearing, seafoam green and patterned with pink and silver peach blossoms, was meant for spring, not for January. “Can I wear this one?” she asked petulantly, tapping a hairpin with a cute little bunny on it.

Momo beamed. “Oh, sure, if you like! That one’s really cute, but don’t tell anyone I said so. Shirou gave it to me two birthdays ago.”

To be honest, that made Rukia like Momo a tiny bit more. Toushirou seemed like a good guy, a little weird, but possibly a kindred spirit. Nevertheless, the fact that Momo made an amatuer sport out of getting his goat made Rukia think that maybe there was a more interesting person under her spotless uniform and perfect ponytails.

After another interminable fifteen minutes of Momo tugging her hair into an acceptable configuration, they made their way back to the front entry, Rukia wobbly on her borrowed geta.

Granny looked up from trying to wipe a smudge off of Toushirou’s face with a handkerchief. “Ah, here they are, finally! It’s good to make a handsome boy wait for you, I always say, but we were worried the shrine was going to close before you two were ready!”

“Granny!” Momo howled, her shoulders hunching.

“Don’t sweat it,” Renji grinned, stretched his arms up behind his head. “Izuru only finished greasing up his hair half a minute ago.”

“You both look lovely,” Izuru said very graciously, in his calm, genteel manner. He always looked a little wispy in his heavy Academy cottons, like a stiff breeze might knock him over, especially next to Renji’s solid, oak tree frame. However, in his elegant silk kimono, tailored to his physique, and embroidered with Kira family mon, he looked slender and pale and handsome.

Rukia’s eyes trailed upward and a little to the left, and her throat went dry. Renji was dressed in an equally elegant silk kimono that didn’t fit half so well. It was long enough, which meant it wasn’t Kira’s, but it was clearly meant for a broader man. Renji had wrapped it slightly creatively, but it still bagged slightly about the hips. Rukia suspected the fit was even worse in the shoulders, but the haori hid the worst of it. The haori in question was a dark red, nearly the same color as Momo’s outfit, brocaded with swirling arabesques, although it, too, was too big, the sleeves coming down nearly to his finger tips. It didn’t matter. Rukia had never seen him look so handsome.

“Maybe you should have let him brush _your_ hair,” Rukia snapped irritably, averting her eyes. “You look a mess, as always.”

“Told you,” Izuru singsonged quietly.

Renji seemed unperturbed. “Eh, they’ll still let me in.”

Granny finally decided that Toushirou’s face passed muster, and they set off through neat, charming streets of Junrinan. Most of the shops had been closed the day before, but now many of them seemed to be advertising sales and there were carts set out to hawk special New Year’s treats.

Rukia hung back a little, as Izuru described his own family festivities, which seemed to involve a lot less floor polishing and a lot more fancy meals with uncles fifth-removed. Granny and Momo seemed rapt, and prodded for more details.

Renji sank into step beside her, using that peculiar loping stride he’d developed that allowed him to walk at half speed while appearing to be walking normally. “Listen to that guy,” he murmured out of the corner of his grin. “When I was talking to him, he was sick to death of being stuffed in kimono and yelled at by his sisters. You’d never know this was his fourth shrine visit in three days.”

“Isn’t that called ‘being polite’ or something?” Rukia suggested. “That thing you’re so impressed with and always trying to get me to do?”

Renji snorted. “I think he’s just trying to look smooth in front of Momo. You think it’s working?”

“Does he like her?” Rukia asked curiously. _That_ would be in interesting development.

Renji shot her a deeply judgemental glare in response. “Your observational powers are gathering dust, Ru,” he accused dryly.

“Maybe I just have better things to focus on than your friends’ stupid crushes,” Rukia shot back. “Schoolwork, you know. My own substantial quantity of admirers.” A mean feeling prickled at her, although she wasn’t exactly who it was aimed at. “She sure looks pretty in that kimono, though, eh?”

“You both look great,” Renji recited diplomatically.

“ _Now_ who’s being polite?” Rukia grumbled. “I’m pretty sure I’m quite off-season.”

“Yeah?” Renji asked, looking her up and down. “I wouldn’t know,” he finally declared. He flapped his arms. “At least it fits you. Kira begged this get-up off his tallest uncle, who also happens to have a significant noodle gut. Been a while since I wore something that was _too big_ for me.”

“Yeah, suck it up, Beanpole.” Rukia sucked her teeth. _That color looks nice on you, though_ , she wanted to say. _Your shoulders look really broad, like in a handsome way, not in your usual big goon way_. _You look grown-up. You look_ good _._

“You remember the shrine back in Inuzuri?” Renji interrupted, tossing a boulder into the torrential rapids of her thoughts.

“Of course, I remember it,” Rukia grunted. “You think the tanuki are having a nice New Year? Ringing the bell?”

“Psh,” Renji scoffed. “I’m sure the angry ghosts scared them all away.”

“There are no ghosts in Soul Society,” Rukia reminded him, something neither of them had been quite sure of before the introductory course at Shin’ou.

“There are ghosts in that haunted fuckin’ shrine,” Renji declared.

“Maybe once we’re real shinigami we can go down there and clear ‘em out,” Rukia suggested. That might be fun, she thought, striding into the town, swathed in black, zanpakutou on their hips, grim and powerful.

“What, as a favor to the tanuki?” Renji snorted. “I’m never going back.”

“Never?” Rukia asked. She would have thought for sure that he would have had some kind of unfinished business down south, some noses he’d left unbroken.

“Never.”

Renji nodded curtly. “I never want to think about that place again.” He waved an arm. “Can you imagine if we’d grown up here? What it would have been like? Why do we even _have_ Inuzuri?”

“We’d be soft,” Rukia decided. She looked around, her eyes settling on a fish-seller’s stall. “That’d be you,” she pointed. “Using those dumb muscles for hauling crates of fish, making eyes at the girls who come in to buy dinner.”

“I’d sell a lot of fish that way,” Renji wagged his eyebrows.

“You’d smell like a carp,” Rukia informed him. “And you’d never be a shinigami.”

“Nah, I bet Momo woulda talked me into it.”

Rukia opened her mouth and then closed it again. She scrunched her nose. She sucked her teeth. “You would really give up your nice little life hacking heads off fish and living in a house and buying stuff with honest money for _Momo_?” tumbled angrily out of her mouth.

Renji contemplated the sky. “You’re probably right,” he agreed. “But you live in Junrinan in this scenario, too, right? So maybe you talk me into it. Maybe that stays the same. I don’t think you can cast a fate off so easily, y’know?”

Rukia hmmphed. She tried to picture herself in this neat, cheerful little town, where everyone said please and thank you and owned a nice kimono for the New Year. A shopgirl? A farmer? A _shrine maiden_? “No,” she declared. “You’re right. You can’t cast off a fate. I couldn’t have grown up here. There’s too much Inuzuri in me. ”

Renji looked down at her, his eyebrows drawn together, his face unreadable. Rukia squirmed under his scrutiny. She hated when he looked at her like that, like he was trying to see the pulleys and strings inside her that made her move.

“What are you lollygaggers doing?” Momo demanded brightly, and Renji’s head snapped up suddenly. Rukia hadn’t even noticed, but they had reached the gates of the shrine.

“Just admiring your town,” Rukia replied over-sweetly and Renji shot her a dagger-glare.

Momo’s cheeks colored self-consciously. “I know it’s not much after living in the Seireitei.”

Rukia’s jaw clicked shut. She’d stuck her foot in it again, as usual.

“She wasn’t bein’ sarcastic!” Renji excused quickly. “We grew up in a literal dump, y’know, this is honestly amazing to us.” He kicked Rukia in the ankle, which, on the unfamiliar geta, almost made her fall over. She scowled at him, but he wasn’t looking.

“When I told people where I was going for the end of break,” Izuru added, “everyone was jealous. Junrinan is famous for its view of the Shiba New Year’s Firework Display.”

“For _every_ Shiba Fireworks Display,” Toushirou grumbled. “Noisy nuisances.”

“What happened to Granny?” Rukia asked, suddenly realizing that the old woman was missing.

“Oh, she saw her boyfriend and went to go talk to him,” Momo explained.

“Mr. Koike is _not_ her boyfriend, they just play shogi sometimes!” Toushirou hissed, utterly scandalized.

Momo rolled her eyes, and gestured for Renji to hold out his hand. When he curiously complied, she dropped a coin into his palm and then held out a second one to Rukia. “She gave us each 50 kan and said to go get fortunes. She’ll meet us in the line to ring the bell.”

Rukia stared at the little round piece of metal in her hand with horror.

“We can’t accept this,” Renji sputtered, aghast. Rukia nodded in agreement, struck speechless.

“It’s 50 kan,” Toushirou gave a puzzled frown. “You can’t buy anything for 50 kan.”

“Don’t sweat it,” Izuru urged. “My family sent a big basket of food with me, it’s worth way more than this.”

“That’s fine for _you_ ,” Renji yelped, grabbing the coin out of Rukia’s hand and shoving them back toward Momo.

“You’re being very silly, and she’ll never accept it back,” Momo scolded. “Granny takes fortunes very seriously.”

“Besides, you two did way more than a hundred kan worth of cleaning,” Toushirou put in. “None of the rest of us can even reach high enough to beat the dust out of the thatch, Granny’s gonna be talking about that for _weeks_.”

Renji and Rukia regarded one another skeptically. Rukia’s lip curled. Renji’s nose wrinkled. Rukia’s eyes narrowed. Renji’s eyebrows furrowed. Three other sets of eyeballs darted from one face to the other, trying to follow the conversation and utterly failing.

“Fine,” Rukia finally snapped, holding out her hand.

Renji slapped the coin back into her palm. “Fine,” he repeated. “So, uh, how does this fortune-telling thing work? Rukia and I were just talking about how our hometown shrine was, uh, a little less than full-service.”

“It’s easy!” Momo beamed, “I’ll show you!”

It wasn’t easy if you didn’t know what to do, Rukia thought to herself, as Momo showed them how to pay respects at the gate, and where to stow their shoes and how to wash their hands and face at the purification spring.

“What, exactly, was your shrine _like_?” Toushirou asked Rukia gingerly while Momo pointed out some interesting bit of architecture to Renji.

“Well, there _used_ to be a priest, at some point,” Rukia hummed thoughtfully. “The story is that he made a bad deal with a fox spirit, who cursed him to turn into a tanuki. At first he still wore his robes and tried to carry out his duties, but then he got mad that no one would come to the shrine any more, aside from the wild tanuki from the woods, with their sharp teeth and red eyes.”

“You don’t believe that though, right? There aren’t any fox spirits in Soul Society, they live in the Demon Realms.” Toushirou spoke rather quickly, his voice reedy with uncertainty.

“We-elll, we’re from District 78, you see, way down at the edges of Soul Society. The dimensional borders aren’t as solid as those blowhards at Shin’ou would have you believe. We’ve saw some pretty weird shit down there, Renji and me.”

Renji must have caught the sound of his own name, because he turned to look at them, the corners of his mouth turned down into a disapproving frown. Rukia looked back at him with half-lidded eyes. What were little brothers for, if not terrifying with horrendous lies?

Ah, well, Toushirou seemed a nice enough kid, and Rukia figured she’d strung him along far enough. “To be honest, the priest probably owed someone money and either skipped town or got a knife in the ribs and a bunch of tanuki overran the place. They were... _probably_ regular tanuki, and not tanuki spirits.”

Toushirou did not look reassured. “Did… did people still go? On New Year’s?”

“Absolutely not,” Rukia replied, shaking her head firmly.

Toushirou looked like he wanted to ask more, but they had reached the front of the line for fortunes. Momo dropped her coin into a box and demonstrated how to draw a numbered stick from a big wooden tube. There was a big cabinet off to the side, full of tiny cubbies. Momo pulled a slip of paper from the cubby that had the same number as her stick. She held it, folded in her hands without looking as Toushirou drew his, and then Izuru. Renji drew a stick with a four on it, which was surely not only bad luck, but meant that his fortune was in a cubby all the way at the top of the cabinet, not that it posed a problem for _him_.

Rukia held her breath as she rattled the canister. _Just get a high number_ , she wished desperately, _so I don’t have to ask that big goofus to reach it for me_. _A high number. Please._

Her face broke into a big grin when she checked her stick. 77. All the way at the bottom. Triumphantly, she retrieved her slip of paper.

“Okay, we can look!” Momo announced, unfolding hers eagerly.

“Pbbt,” Toushirou sighed. “Uncertain luck. Be cautious in your business dealings. Avoid travel. Just what I was hoping for. These things are so stupid.”

“I got a big blessing!” Momo squealed. “And the highest level of luck in my studies!”

Izuru chuckled. “Like you need it. I got a small blessing.” He skimmed the rest. “The details are typically vague. Ah, well, a blessing’s a blessing. I’ll take it. What’d you get, Renji?” He tried to peer over Renji’s shoulder, but Renji snatched his away quickly.

“Future blessing,” Renji grumped. “Aren’t they all?”

“Well, yeah, but it usually means yours might not come true this year,” Momo suggested. “Anything interesting in the detailed part?”

Renji held his fortune close to his face, like he needed to squint to read it, but Rukia suspected he was just trying to keep anyone else from looking at it. “Extra super big blessing in studies.”

“That’s not a category,” Momo interrupted.

“Mixed luck in resolving disputes,” Renji frowned. “The person you are waiting for will arrive eventually, but not this year. What is this bunk? I’m not waiting for anyone.”

There was something interesting in his fortune, Rukia was sure of it from the goofy way he was acting, but he certainly wasn’t going to read that part out loud. She unfolded her own carefully.

“What did you get, Rukia?” Momo asked eagerly.

“Certain disaster,” Rukia read off blankly.

Everyone stared at her.

“Ha ha, very funny,” Momo laughed. “Really, what did you get?”

Rukia turned it around, showing off the character for “great curse,” printed on the rightmost side.

Renji slowly lowered his paper, blinking at her seriously.

“Don’t worry about it, it’s just a dumb game,” Toushirou shrugged. “I got a curse last year and nothing came of it.”

“Also, you see that tree over there?” Izuru said, pointing to a nearby pine festooned with bits of paper. “You can leave a bad fortune there, and it’s supposed to wait at the shrine. It’s a pun, you know, on _matsu_.”

Rukia was busy reading the other details of her fortune. _Your lucky direction is north. You will lose an important object. You will have bad luck in your studies. You will have bad luck in love. You will change residences. You will have good luck in your business dealings._ She looked up. “Well, it says my business dealings are going to be blessed, so at least I have that going for me.”

“Mine wasn’t great, I’m gonna tie it to the tree,” Toushirou announced to no one in particular.

“You can leave good fortunes there, too,” Izuru went on, still trying to salvage things. “The idea is that they’ll wait around and your luck will last longer. I think I’ll tie mine up too.”

“I’m keeping mine,” Momo announced defensively. “It’s more likely to come true if you keep it.”

Rukia kept staring at hers, even as everyone else started to make their way toward the tree. She had wasted all her luck on hoping for a high number, and this is where it got her. Unlucky in love and losing important objects. Suddenly, the slip of paper was snatched from her hands. “Hey!” she yelped.

“Stop starin’ at it,” Renji admonished, and began striding purposefully toward the bad fortune tree.

“Give it back!” Rukia shouted, chasing after him.

“Nope,” he replied, grimly.

“C’mon, how am I supposed to avoid my dire curse if I don’t have the details!”

Renji went up on his tiptoes in order to tie her fortune to the tallest branch he could reach.

“C’mon, you don’t believe in this crap, do you, Abarai?” Rukia jumped and tried to make a swipe for it, even though her efforts were obviously hopeless.

“Course not and neither do you.” Renji regarded his handiwork for a moment, and then pulled out his own fortune and proceeded to tie it to the same branch as Rukia’s.

“Now what are you doing?” Rukia howled. “Yours was good!”

Renji set his jaw. “Right. And if I tie ‘em together, maybe some of my good luck will offset your bad.”

“That’s not a thing, you just made that up!” Rukia gritted her teeth and then continued in a quieter voice. “Also, what if my bad luck gets all over your good luck and ruins it?”

“Che,” Renji scoffed. He finished tying off the fortunes and crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m sure my good luck is much more powerful than your dumb bad luck.”

“You’re so _stupid_ ,” Rukia proclaimed, kicking him in the shin. “You deserve to have my bad luck get all over you! I hope you flunk Barriers and Bindings!”

“You two are both making things up, there is no cosmological basis to what you are saying,” Toushirou tried to point out.

“Renji’s blessing is a _future_ blessing,” Momo ticked off on her fingers. “So maybe Rukia’s curse will hit first, but then things will work out in the end?”

The only reason Momo could be so optimistic, Rukia thought, was that nothing really bad had ever happened to her. Rukia knew better, although she wished that she didn’t.

“Your heart is too soft, Momo,” Izuru admonished gently, and then his mouth curled into a crafty grin. “Don’t you remember when he yelled at us zanjutsu about not taking advantage of a man when he’s down?” He cocked an eyebrow at Renji. “Momo and I’ll take you two on at badminton when we get home.” It was obvious what he was doing. There was nothing for shaking Renji out of a funk like challenging him to a competition.

“You can even have Toushirou if you want,” Momo piped up, latching onto the idea immediately.

“Leave me out of this,” Toushirou grumbled.

Renji bristled cheerfully. “You couldn’t beat me and Rukia at badminton on the worst luck day of my life!”

Toushirou leaned over to Rukia’s ear. “Has he ever played before?”

“Doubtful,” Rukia replied.

* * *

Rukia found Renji out in the backyard, trying to bounce the shuttlecock into the air for as long as possible by himself.

“I didn’t know there would be so much competitive stuff,” Renji announced without looking at her. “We should practice a lot so we’re ready for next year!”

“Or you could try caring less,” Rukia suggested dryly.

“Unacceptable!” Renji shouted, missing the shuttlecock.

“C’mere,” Ruka beckoned. “Let me wipe that ink off your face. The longer you let it sit, the more it will stain.” Apparently, every time you got scored on in badminton, the other team got to draw on your face. They’d gotten trounced pretty badly. Momo had already helped her clean her own face with mineral oil and even given her some nice, orangey-smelling cream to put on it afterward.

She rather expected Renji to protest, but instead, he walked over and tipped his face up dutifully. With Rukia up on the porch, and Renji standing on the ground, she could reach him fairly comfortably.

“Maybe I should just leave this, it’s cute,” she mused, examining Momo’s handiwork-- whiskers, bunny teeth, a spot over one eye, some goofy angry eyebrows.

“When did you get into cute stuff, anyway?” Renji laughed.

“I’m not, really!” Rukia defended.

“Oh, yeah? What’s this, then?” He reached his hand up toward her face, and she swatted it away, thinking he was going to flick her forehead or tug her hair, before remembering the bunny hairpin Momo had lent her earlier. “Better than some floofy flower,” she mumbled, grabbing him firmly by the chin and dabbing at the little bunny nose drawn on the tip of his own nose with her rag. “And so what if I do like cute things? What’s wrong with cute things?”

“Nothing’s wrong with cute things,” Renji agreed. Rukia jerked his head to one side and scrubbed roughly at his whiskers. “Sometimes I’m not sure you like anything up here in the Good Place.”

Rukia was silent for a moment. She cleared her throat. “I like lots of stuff up here, I just don’t wear every emotion on my face like _some people_.” She transferred the rag to her left hand, and fished a rather sticky handkerchief bundle out of her sleeve with the other. “Speaking of which, I nicked the rest of the kuromame out of the osechi-ryori for you.”

“Rukia!” Renji gasped, as she plunked the dripping parcel into his hand. “We’re _guests_! You shouldn’t have done that.”

“Oh, no worries, Momo’s already blamed Toushirou for it,” Rukia dismissed. She worked silently for a moment, while he teased open the knot on his ill-gotten beans. “ _You_ shouldn’t have taken my fortune.”

“C’mon, you don’t believe in that stuff,” Renji declared, pouring beans into his mouth.

“No, of course not,” Rukia agreed quickly. “But we talked about this, remember? We won’t get anywhere in the Seireitei by sticking together, it makes us look like Rukon trash that can’t fit in. We each have to make it on our own. Don’t make jokes about tying our fates together.”

Renji studied her face, chewing noisily. “That’s just at school. Momo and Izuru don’t think we’re trash. And it wasn’t a joke. We’ll graduate and get accepted into the Gotei. Even if we don’t get into the same squad at first, after a few years, we’ll figure out a way for one or t’other of us to transfer.”

Easy for him to say, up there at the top of the Advanced Class with his pile of A’s and his stupidly talented friends. She didn’t understand how he could be so smart and still not notice that she was like an anchor, destined to drag him down.

He flashed her a big grin and punched her in the shoulder. “I told you, Ru, it’s not easy to cast off a fate. You’re stuck with me whether you want me or not.”

Rukia wondered sometimes if Renji ever thought about the things he said, if he reflected on them later, or if they passed through his brain, however briefly, before exiting his mouth. She knew he was _capable_ of cognitive thought-- he’d come up with a few stunningly brilliant grifts over the years, to say nothing of his current academic success. It was always a mystery, though, when he blurted out things like this, whether they were the end result of careful contemplation, or if they just splattered out uncontrollably from the bubbling soup kettle of his heart.

Rukia wasn’t sure which would be worse.

“Hey, Renji?”

“Yus?” he asked, around his beans.

“What did your fortune say? The part you wouldn’t read out loud?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he grumbled, his eyes sliding over to the side, the way they always did when he lied to her.

“Don’t shit me, Abarai,” she chastised him.

“It said I’ll make youngest captain in Gotei history.”

Rukia blew a raspberry at him.

“I’ll save Soul Society and get a medal from the Soul King.”

“Lies.”

“I’ll get to eat a taiyaki the size of my head? What do you want from me, Rukia?”

“Just tell me!” She screwed her face up into a frown and stared him straight in the eye.

His expression melted and he looked away with a soft exhale. “It just said I’d get something I’ve always wanted. You know how vague these things are.”

“Well, I stole you those beans,” Rukia muttered.

“That was probably it, then,” he replied with a rueful chuckle.

Suddenly, there was a loud _boom_ , and they both startled. Red sparks lit the sky from over the tops of the houses.

“What was that?” Renji yelped.

“Oh!” Rukia gasped. “The fireworks! I was supposed to come out and tell you they were about to start! Everyone else was going up on the roof!”

“They’re so loud!” Renji exclaimed. They’d seen fireworks before-- if the weather was clear, they could see the big Seireitei Hanabi displays, but they were dim and nearly silent from so far away. He grabbed her forearm for balance as he hefted himself up onto the porch. “C’mon, let’s go!” he shouted, hauling her through the backdoor.

“Your face! I wasn’t done!”

“Who cares! I don’t want to miss anything!”

And because she didn’t want to make him miss anything either, Rukia followed.

the end (and Happy New Year!)


End file.
